“Ten minutes before I die. I like to aggravate people, so I still come in every day,” quipped the sharply-dressed, fluently-bilingual 75-year-old during a visit to the corporate offices of Cookina Inc., the Brossard-based business he started and runs with children Alain, 49, and Chantal, 42.

Robert’s sales experience and contacts were key in the launch of Cookina just over three years ago, said Alain, who manages the business. “He’s the best salesman, so passionate about the product.”

The company makes paper-thin, non-stick fibreglass sheets that can be placed under food cooked on barbecues or in ovens. Coated with a non-flammable, synthetic resin called PTFE and capable of withstanding temperatures as high as 550 degrees F, they’re a washable, reusable substitute for foil or parchment paper. Cookina also produces a protective liner for the bottom of ovens.

The first retail outlets that agreed to carry its products had been small shops, boutiques and hardware stores. They’d been dealing for decades with Robert, a former sales director for Eastern Canada for Christmas lights-maker Noma, as well as a sales agent for several other companies.

Cookina was a departure for him and for his children. Alain had worked in advertising and marketing, Chantal (who oversees the company’s finances) is a former paralegal.

“It was time to find a product, create a brand of our own and use our network to promote it at the retail level,” Alain said. “What’s good is that we have separate fields of interest. We don’t step on each other’s toes.”

They were already hunting for a product to build a company around when one of Robert’s friends came back from Australia with a sample of a grilling sheet sold in that country for use on barbecues.

“It was poorly packaged, but I thought it had promise,” Alain said. “There was nothing like it here at the retail level, though it’s been around for 40 years in the industrial ovens of the fast-food industry. It basically transforms your grill into a non-stick surface.”

Off to China he went, intent on coming up with a prototype and lining up a manufacturer.

After much trial and error, they arrived at “our own special recipe.” The product now is made for them in China by four factories, with confidentiality agreements that include locked production rooms where only Cookina products are assembled.

“They can be fined, or lose the business, if they ever show the product (to others),” Alain said.

The agreements are necessary because knock-offs are always part of the competitive landscape.

“We know of one U.S. company that actually came with our box and said ‘reproduce this,’ ” he said.

Alain said he can even be seen in the demonstration video of a competitor who copied Cookina’s for its own product pitch.

“They’re actually promoting their product with my face,” he said.

Cookina has a full-time presence in China: Dov Azoulay, a French citizen married to a Chinese woman who has lived there 11 years and ran a quality-control shop.

“He knows the market there and liked our business model. China is an interesting place. Of course, they can do cheap stuff, but if you want to pay for quality, they’ll do that, too. But you want to supervise the process. He ensures our production criteria are respected. We don’t cut corners. The special liquid we use is imported from Japan.”

The distinguishing features of Cookina’s products are the endurance of the non-stick surface and the stainless-steel ring that allows the sheet to be rolled up, turning it into a “kitchen utensil” rather than a simple sheet of fibreglass, Richard said.

The brand slogan is: “When there’s no ring, it’s not the real thing.”

The sheets, which come in barbecue and oven varieties, retail from $9.99 to $16.99, with distinct packaging for mass-market and boutique outlets so they’re not selling exactly the same thing.

In its first year, Cookina sold about 200,000 units.

“Pot Pourri (a kitchen and giftware store in St-Sauveur) was one of our first customers,” Alain said. “It sold 750 units on its own the first summer and really helped launch the brand.”

Cookina products now are sold in 5,000 stores in Canada, including most major retailers, and they’re making inroads in the U.S., where they were introduced last year in Home Depot and this month in Costco. Visibility in the U.S. has been heightened by mention on TV shows like Today and Oprah.

Sales are expected to top 1.2 million units this year, generating sales of “a little less than $10 million” for the company, which has warehouses in Brossard and Champlain, N.Y., but gets by with fewer than 10 employees.

It’s hoping growth will get a further push from the recent introduction of a new line aimed at the food-service business.

About half of Cookina’s current revenue is generated in Canada, 40 per cent in the U.S. and 10 per cent in the rest of the world.

“We should be a lot bigger than we are in the U.S.,” Alain said. “That’s something we’re focusing on.”

For Robert, watching the family venture take root and expand has been an energizing, rejuvenating experience.

“It’s an adjustment, but I’ve been doing that all my life, since my first job as a buyer at Eaton’s in 1963. Really, this is a privilege, working with my son and daughter. It’s a gift from God … which I deserve, by the way.”

The expression was coined by the late Parti Québécois premier René Lévesque when he rolled the dice in the early 1980s and threw his support behind then prime minister Brian Mulroney’s plan to amend the Canadian Constitution.

Morissette and Cloutier’s beau risque is not going to affect the political future of Canada the way Lévesque’s did, but it is indeed a very risky venture for one of Quebec entertainment’s highest-profile power couples.

Morissette convinced his wife to drop all of her TV projects to star in Les Morissette en spectacle, a live comedy show penned by Morissette and based loosely on their own lives as two of the province’s top vedettes. It had its Montreal première Thursday night at Théâtre Maisonneuve of Place des Arts.

For Véro – as she is affectionately known to her fans – to walk away from her TV career is not a decision she took lightly.

She is one of the most famous TV hosts in the province, in a select club that also includes Julie Snyder, Guy A. Lepage and Charles Lafortune. It sent shock waves through the TV biz here when Cloutier announced last November that she would be stepping down at the end of the season as host of Les enfants de la télé, ditching the gig at the height of the Radio-Canada show’s popularity.

“It really is a completely new job for me,” Cloutier told Le Soleil.

“I say things that I wouldn’t have ever dared say on TV or on the radio,” she said, acknowledging it shows a different side of her. “I talk about sex a bit … and I even swear.”

Why take the risk?

Because that’s what they live for, said Morissette, in a phone interview just hours before the première Thursday night.

Morissette has acted in and written and produced a bunch of popular TV shows. And he and Véro have worked together on several editions of Le Bye Bye, the top-rated year-end satirical show on Radio-Canada.

“For sure we could’ve stayed and worked all of our lives on television and taken a lot fewer risks,” said Morissette. “But that’s what creation is all about. That’s the fun. To put yourself right on the edge, to not know if it’s going to work or fall apart. Even the Bye Byes are the same thing. I don’t need to do Le Bye Bye. It’s not a money-making thing. But it’s fun. You feel like you’re really creating something.

“Why do the live show? I’ve done stand-up before, when I graduated from L’École nationale de l’humour, and I liked it. With Véro, we really weren’t sure what she should do after Les enfants de la télé. It’s not easy to come back with another big hit TV show after a major success. It’s always complicated to come up with a follow-up. So we decided – ‘Okay, we won’t come up with a follow-up TV show. We’re going to do something completely different.’ We wanted to expand our horizons. I know Véro has great comic timing and we wanted to play on that. To show another side of her talent.”

The tone of the show was set from the opening Thursday night.

Morissette arrives on stage, begins delivering a stand-up routine and is rudely interrupted by Véro who arrives on stage with lights flashing, a huge video screen playing it up, and loud music, and soon enough she’s in the crowd snapping selfies with her fans. Morissette is standing there fuming.

That’s one of the central jokes here – that she’s one of our biggest vedettes and he isn’t.

Honestly, that gag becomes a tad tired over the course of the show. What’s way more interesting is how the two of them use their celebrity couple-hood to explore all of the issues facing any couple, including kids, sex, education and, that old stand-up saw, husband-and-wife arguments. Cloutier is the one without stand-up experience but she really is a natural on stage. She knows the crowd loves her and she knows how to feed off that.

But it’s Morissette who gives it the much-needed edge. He spends the night needling his wife.

But Véro holds her own, retorting: “He’s only good enough to sell pepperoni and pizza,” a dig at the fact he’s the spokesman here for Boston Pizza.

In fact, the show works best when it feels like the tension is real between the two of them. Of course, it’s all scripted but at its best, they dig into the emotional minefield that is any union of two adults.

Does it reinvent the wheel? Not really. Will the Morissette/Cloutier grumblers like it? No. But it works precisely because Morissette and Cloutier are such perfect foils – the acerbic critical writer guy up against the street-smart, crowd-pleasing superstar. By the time they get to Véro’s famous imitations – the part of the show Morissette says he hates – no one is complaining, as she does brilliant send-ups of Valérie Carpentier, Céline Dion, Guy A. Lepage and Mike Ward.

And so it looks like their beau risque might well pay off. Close to 100,000 tickets have already been sold across the province for Les Morissette en spectacle and Morissette expects that they’ll tour the show for the next three years, doing around 60 to 65 gigs a year, giving both of them time to continue to work on other projects.

Related

“I knew she had the talent to do it,” said Morissette. “We’ve hosted events for benefit foundations or programming launches, and I knew the verbal ping-pong between the two of us was interesting.”

But he admits you do need some mental preparation to mount a stand-up show like this.

“You have to be a bit full of yourself.”

That verbal ping-pong was indeed interesting Thursday, but more importantly, it was also usually quite funny.

***

Les Morissette en spectacle continues until Dec. 6 at Théâtre Maisonneuve and they have added shows April 10 and 11. Tickets cost $57.07, $52.73 and $50.12. All shows until Dec. 6 are sold out. Details:lesmorissette.com.

But judging by the reaction of the sold-out house Thursday night at Théâtre Maisonneuve of Place des Arts, the gamble is paying off.

The tone of the show was set from the opening Thursday night. Morissette arrives on stage, begins delivering a standup routine and is rudely interrupted by Véro, who arrives on stage with lights flashing, a huge video screen playing it up, and loud music, and soon enough she’s in the crowd snapping selfies with her fans. Morissette is standing there fuming. That’s one of the central jokes here — that she’s one of our biggest vedettes and he isn’t.

Honestly, that gag becomes a tad tired over the course of the show. What’s way more interesting is how the two of them use their celebrity couple-hood to explore all of the issues facing any couple, including kids, sex, education, and, that old standup saw, husband-and-wife arguments. Cloutier is the one without standup experience but she really is a natural on stage. She knows the crowd loves her and she knows how to feed off that.

But it’s Morissette who gives it the much-needed edge. He spends the night needling his wife.

But Véro holds her own, retorting: “He’s only good enough to sell pepperoni and pizza”, a dig at the fact he’s the spokesman here for Boston Pizza.

In fact, the show works best when it feels like the tension is real between the two of them. Of course, it’s all scripted but at its best, they dig into the emotional minefield that is any union of two adults.

Does it reinvent the wheel? Not really. Will the Morissette/Cloutier grumblers like it? No. But it works precisely because Morissette and Cloutier are such perfect foils — the acerbic critical writer guy up against the street-smart crowd-pleasing superstar. By the time they get to Véro’s famous imitations — the part of the show Morissette says he hates — no one is complaining, as she does brilliant send-ups of Valérie Carpentier, Céline Dion, Guy A. Lepage and Mike Ward.

Les Morissette en spectacle continues until Dec. 6 at Théâtre Maisonneuve and there are added shows April 10 and 11.

A New York Times profile of TV writer-producer Shonda Rhimes has sparked controversy and criticism, with some calling it racist and offensive.

One longtime subscriber described herself as “deeply offended by the story,” calling it “racist, ignorant, and arrogant.”

The story later prompted an apology and explanation from the newspaper.

In a feature article published online last Friday and in print on Sunday, veteran Times TV critic Alessandra Stanley references strong black women characters in such Rhimes shows as Grey’s Anatomy (Chandra Wilson as Miranda Bailey), Scandal (Kerry Washington as Olivia Pope) and the new drama How to Get Away With Murder (Viola Davis as Annalise Keating).

The profile says Rhimes “has done more to reset the image of African-American women on television than anyone since Oprah Winfrey.”

How to Get Away With Murder, which stars Davis as a tough lawyer and law professor, debuts Thursday on CTV and ABC.

In creating strong women as “authority figures with sharp minds and potent libidos who are respected, even haughty members of the ruling elite, not maids or nurses or office workers,” the Times profile says, “Rhimes has embraced the trite but persistent caricature of the Angry Black Woman, recast it in her own image and made it enviable.

“She has almost singlehandedly trampled a taboo even Michelle Obama couldn’t break.”

The Times may have intended the profile as praise, but both the paper and its writer were surprised by the blowback in equating Rhimes with the “Angry Black Woman.”

There was also negative reaction to Stanley describing Davis as “less classically beautiful” than lighterskinned African-American actresses.

In an apology posted Monday, New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan says the writer “delivered (her) message in a condescending way that was – at best – astonishingly tonedeaf and out of touch.”

Times culture editor Danielle Mattoon also apologizes, saying: “There was never any intent to offend anyone and I deeply regret that it did. Because the piece was so largely positive, we as editors weren’t sensitive enough to the language being used.”

But Stanley defends her story, saying critics have quoted her out of context.

In the same post by the public editor, Stanley says: “I referenced a painful and insidious stereotype solely in order to praise Rhimes and her shows for travelling so far from it. If making that connection between the two offended people, I feel bad about that. But I think that a full reading allows for a different take-away than the loudest critics took.”

The critic also stands by her “less than classically beautiful” descriptor, saying “Viola Davis said it about herself in the NYT magazine, more bluntly. I commended Rhimes for casting an actress who doesn’t conform to television’s narrow standards of beauty; I have said the same thing about Helen Mirren in Prime Suspect.”

]]>http://montrealgazette.com/entertainment/television/profile-of-shonda-rhimes-called-racist-arrogant/feed0The New York Times public editor has apologized for a "tone-deaf" profile of TV writer-producer Shonda Rimes, above.montrealgazettePamela Anderson, Nick Kypreos complete New York City Marathonhttp://montrealgazette.com/sports/pamela-anderson-nick-kypreos-complete-new-york-city-marathon
http://montrealgazette.com/sports/pamela-anderson-nick-kypreos-complete-new-york-city-marathon#commentsMon, 04 Nov 2013 00:50:57 +0000http://blogs.montrealgazette.com/?p=236761]]>When former Baywatch star Pamela Anderson (photo above) announced she was going to run in the New York City Marathon on Nov. 3, Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times wrote in his Sideline Chatter column: ”If (Anderson) runs as fast as she did in all those ‘Baywatch’ slo-mos, race officials fear, she might not finish before Thanksgiving.”

Have no fear: The 46-year-old mother of two teenage boys completed the marathon in 5:41:03. Anderson wasn’t able to beat the time of 4:29:15 set by Oprah Winfrey when she completed the 1994 Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, D.C., at age 40.

Former NHL player and current Sportsnet hockey analyst Nick Kypreos also completed the New York marathon, but wasn’t able to beat Oprah’s time, either. Kypreos, who finished in 4:43, tweeted after the marathon: “Overwhelmed by all support. Thx! Finished 4:43. No didn’t beat @Oprah Mac. My wife says I would have if I didn’t stop 3x’s for directions.”

To see the times of some other celebrities who completed the New York City Marathon, click here.

Read the New York Post article about Anderson finishing the marathon by clicking here.

To read a previous blog post about Anderson running in the marathon, click here.

Below is a column I wrote about Kypreos and his training for last year’s New York City Marathon, which was cancelled because of superstorm Sandy:

(Photo by Seth Wenig/The Associated Press)

Kypreos up for marathon – or hockey

PUBLISHED IN THE GAZETTE ON NOV. 3, 2012

STU COWAN
GAZETTE SPORTS EDITOR

Nick Kypreos is definitely not built like a marathon man.

Kenya’s Geoffrey Mutai shattered the course record at last year’s New York City Marathon with a time of two hours, five minutes and six seconds, beating the previous mark of 2: 07: 43 for the 26.2-mile race (42.2 kilometres) set by Tesfaye Jifar of Ethiopia a decade earlier.

Mutai, who runs 110-125 miles (160-200 kilometres) per week in training, is listed as 5-foot-6 and 119 pounds. Like most elite marathon runners, he looks like a hunger striker.

Kypreos, a rugged former NHL player who is now a hockey commentator with Sportsnet, is 6 feet tall and weighed 230 pounds on July 15. But he got down to 208 pounds after training to be on the starting line for this year’s New York marathon, which was slated for Sunday.

Those plans were dashed Friday when New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg reversed a decision he made earlier in the day and decided to cancel the marathon as criticism mounted about holding the event in a city still recovering from the devastation of superstorm Sandy.

“We would not want a cloud to hang over the race or its participants, and so we have decided to cancel it,” the mayor said in a statement. “We cannot allow a controversy over an athletic event – even one as meaningful as this – to distract attention away from all the critically important work that is being done to recover from the storm and get our city back on track.”

After Bloomberg’s announcement, Kypreos tweeted: “If VIP’s decided attention now needs 2b on #Sandy and not @ INGNYCMarathon, I support it 100%. Thx 2 all 4 support. I was truly humbled by it.”

Sportsnet was slated to televise the marathon, holding the Canadian rights, and race organizers offered Kypreos the opportunity to compete as a way of promoting the event.

What made the 46-year-old say yes?

“A few factors,” Kypreos, who posted 46-44-90 totals – and 1,210 penalty minutes – in 442 career NHL games with Washington, Hartford, the New York Rangers and Toronto, said when I spoke with him on Wednesday. “One of them was the fact that it was such a great challenge and, after 15 years of being retired, it was nice to think about maybe getting the body back not in a professional mode, but one of an athlete.

“I originally said no at the beginning because I’m not a runner,” added Kypreos, who suffered a career-ending concussion in a fight with Ryan VandenBussche during a preseason game in 1997. “I’d never run more than two miles in my whole life, and that was at training camp because it was a measure of endurance 25 years ago. So the more I thought about it – factoring in that we all thought that there would be a work stoppage – everything kind of came together at the right time to say: ‘Let’s go for it.'”

Kypreos, who won a Stanley Cup with New York in 1994, wouldn’t have been the first former Ranger to run in the city’s marathon. His former teammates Mark Messier, Adam Graves and Mike Richter have all completed the race, as did Pat LaFon-taine, who played for both the Islanders and the Rangers.

“Mark told me on a number of occasions it’s one of the toughest things he’s ever done,” Kypreos said. “He really stressed more than anything what you put in your body is the most important thing … nutrition and staying hydrated were major factors for him.”

So Kypreos called former NHLer Gary Roberts, who has become somewhat of a guru for sports nutrition and training through the Gary Roberts High Performance Centre, with Steven Stamkos as his poster boy.

“It’s all about a good balance between your carbs, your protein, your fibre intake,” Kypreos said of his new diet. “I’ve been able to go from 230 pounds back to my original playing weight at 208.”

Training for the marathon became more about a way of life for Kypreos than simply trying to complete the race.

“For me, it was a lifestyle change more than just getting ready for the marathon,” he said. “I don’t want to go back to 230 pounds ever again. I don’t know if I can guarantee it … I know I don’t want it.

“My weight’s down, I feel good … this is as good as I’ve felt in the last 15 years. I want this to continue long after the marathon is done.”

One of the ways Kypreos got up to 230 pounds was by splitting an extra-large pepperoni pizza with Sportsnet colleague Doug MacLean following some late-night NHL playoff action last season. And it was MacLean who came up with a marathon challenge for Kypreos.

“The big talk from Doug MacLean is that I have to beat Oprah’s marathon time of 4: 29,” said Kypreos, referring to Oprah Winfrey’s time of 4: 29: 15 at the 1994 Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, D.C., at age 40.

“So that would be considered a major accomplishment according to Doug MacLean.”

A personal goal for Kypreos was to beat the time of 4: 14: 21 that Messier posted at last year’s New York marathon at age 50.

Maybe next year. It’s ironic that the marathon was cancelled on the same day the NHL cancelled its Winter Classic game as the lockout drags on with no end in sight.

“I still think that there’s a deal to be done and I got to think smarter people will prevail out of all of this,” Kypre-os said on Wednesday. “It’s not 2004, where the owners need to lock the whole season down to get a salary cap and revenue sharing. We’re really down to the nitty gritty here and people should be fired if the season gets cancelled.”

Considering the circumstances, I don’t think anyone will be fired for cancelling the marathon.

]]>http://montrealgazette.com/sports/pamela-anderson-nick-kypreos-complete-new-york-city-marathon/feed00.000000 0.0000000.0000000.000000stuartcowanGazette Midday: Alleged killer posts crime photos on FB, Oprah gets an apologyhttp://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/gazette-midday-alleged-killer-posts-crime-photos-on-fb-oprah-gets-an-apology
http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/gazette-midday-alleged-killer-posts-crime-photos-on-fb-oprah-gets-an-apology#commentsFri, 09 Aug 2013 15:36:18 +0000http://blogs.montrealgazette.com/?p=229344]]>Hello and welcome to montrealgazette.com and welcome to Midday. Here’s the rundown on some of the stories we’re following for you today.

A South Florida man who apparently posted a photo of his 26-year-old wife’s body slumped on the floor and turned himself in to police has been charged with first-degree murder. Miami-Dade police said 31-year-old Derek Medina turned himself in to police after Jennifer Alfonso was fatally shot inside the couple’s home in South Miami, a suburb of Miami. When officers responded to the home, they found Alfonso’s body, as well as her 10-year-old daughter, who was unharmed.

Oprah Winfrey says she had a racist encounter while shopping in Switzerland — and the national tourist office and the shop owner have apologized. The billionaire media mogul told the U.S. program “Entertainment Tonight” that a shop assistant in Zurich refused to show her a black handbag priced at $38,000 because “you will not be able to afford that.” Forbes magazine estimates that Winfrey earned $77 million in the year ending in June. Winfrey was in town to attend last month’s wedding of her longtime pal Tina Turner, who lives in a chateau along Lake Zurich.

Closer to home, Aeroplan members are anxiously awaiting a decision about which credit card they’ll be using next year to accumulate miles. With a deadline looming today, CIBC is running out of time to decide whether to match an offer by TD to become the new credit card rewards partner for Aimia, owner of Aeroplan. If CIBC declines to do so, then current Aeroplan members accustomed to using their CIBC credit cards to accumulate points will have to decide whether to get a new credit card to continue to adding miles to their existing accounts.

And finally, the International Olympic Committee is waiting for more clarifications from the Russian government on the anti-gay law that is overshadowing preparations for the Winter Games in Sochi, IOC President Jacques Rogge said Friday. The law, signed by President Vladimir Putin in June, bans “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations” and imposes fines on those holding gay pride rallies. It has caused a major international outcry and spawned calls for protests ahead of the Feb. 7-23 Olympics in the Black Sea resort. Rogge said the Russian government provided written re-assurances about the law on Thursday, but that some elements are still too unclear to pass judgment.

I know many of you are probably all Oprah-ed out by now, but I just had to share a poem that she delivered to the crowd of 15,000 in Montreal last night (April 11th) . It’s one she looks at every day (it’s in her loo!) and something she gives as a gift to friends and family.

It’s wonderful.

She was wonderful, talking about everything from being poor to being overweight and everything in between.

Funny, warm, engaging. I know, I know, I am biased!

It was a very moving evening and as a result, I just had to share this poem by Derek Walcott. Like her, it’s something else.

I’ll stop now!

Love After Love

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Derek Walcott

]]>http://montrealgazette.com/health/diet-fitness/oprah-in-montreal-a-night-to-remember/feed0Oprah 1.jpgjunietOprah – an icon who looks you in the eyehttp://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/oprah-an-icon-who-looks-you-in-the-eye
http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/oprah-an-icon-who-looks-you-in-the-eye#commentsFri, 12 Apr 2013 17:58:39 +0000http://blogs.montrealgazette.com/?p=218815]]>Oprah Winfrey is more than just a successful television talk show host. She’s a billionaire, a media icon, an author, a life coach, an apparent example to an entire generation of women and a one woman industry that doesn’t show any sign of slowing down.

Oprah brought her speaking tour to the Bell Centre last night and the audience of 15,000 that paid an average price of $200 a ticket for the chance to listen to her pretty well raised the roof when she stepped onto the stage. If you were a part of that audience, you may already have been asked the same question I asked my guest on today’s podcast. And that question – quite simply – is why? Why the adoration? Why the implicit belief that what Oprah says – and a lot of what she’s said has been said before by other people – somehow resonates differently, resonates more truthfully, when it comes from her?

June Thompson is a blogger and columnist here at The Gazette and she and the lucky winner of The Gazette’s An Evening Oprah contest were able to spend some quality time with the great lady herself. It had been more than 12 hours since that encounter when June spokes to montreal@themoment, and it was clear that June still had a glow from the experience. And as that glow continued to shine, I asked June for her take on Oprah, a woman she’s meet three times in her life and yet credits with changing that life . Click on the grey icon below to hear what she had to say. And remember, you can listen to all of our podcasts at montrealgazette.com/montreal@themoment on iTunes and follow us on Facebook.

http://wpmedia.montrealgazette.com/2013/04/oprah.mp3]]>http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/oprah-an-icon-who-looks-you-in-the-eye/feed1Oprah 035A7794.jpgjamesmennieGazette Midday: Oprah, North Korea and the Habshttp://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/gazette-midday-oprah-north-korea-and-the-habs
http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/gazette-midday-oprah-north-korea-and-the-habs#commentsFri, 12 Apr 2013 15:32:28 +0000http://blogs.montrealgazette.com/?p=218803]]>Hello and welcome to montrealgazette.com and welcome to Midday. Here’s the rundown on some of the stories we’re following for you today.

Meanwhile, on the Korean peninsula, tensions are being ratcheted up further by the possibility the North Korean government may test launch a missile potentially capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. And U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is making it clear that such a launch would not be a good idea.

BlackBerry wants regulatory authorities to investigate what it says is a “false and misleading” analyst report that claims the company’s new touchscreen smartphones are being returned in unusually high numbers. BlackBerry claims it and its shareholders have been harmed and called for an immediate investigation by the Ontario Securities Commission and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm behind the report, Boston-based Detwiler Fenton, hasn’t responded to a request for comment.

And finally, The Gazette’s Pat Hickey writes that a victory by the Habs last night has garnered them a playoff spot, albeit in a season abbreviated by a lockout.

]]>http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/gazette-midday-oprah-north-korea-and-the-habs/feed0jamesmennieOprah and Deepak: 21 day meditation challenge – and it's freehttp://montrealgazette.com/health/diet-fitness/oprah-and-deepak-21-day-meditation-challenge-and-its-free
http://montrealgazette.com/health/diet-fitness/oprah-and-deepak-21-day-meditation-challenge-and-its-free#commentsThu, 07 Mar 2013 23:34:05 +0000http://blogs.montrealgazette.com/?p=213717]]>Oprah and Deepak Chopra are teaming up for a 21 day meditation challenge which begins Monday, March 11th.

As the Divine Ms. O says “Stillness is the space where all creative expression, peace, and love abide.”

Couldn’t agree more.

If you’ve been thinking about learning how to be still, (believe me, it’s not as easy as you might think!) now’s your time to try – and it’s free!